


Sea Glass, Streaked With Amber

by azarias



Series: A future [3]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Canon, Sappy, but not anyone we know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 11:52:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15118832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azarias/pseuds/azarias
Summary: The heat gets to Thomas.





	Sea Glass, Streaked With Amber

**Author's Note:**

> It is summer [my dudes](https://youtu.be/WzZaJDg6E0A).
> 
> Betaed by Rahne. Anything that's still wrong is because I fucked it up.

The Maroons had a knack of building for the heat, such that even in the deepest swelter every building caught a breeze and made the air just that much more bearable to breath. Still Thomas might have died of this heat, or at least been fainting frail, had he come here straight from London. When he was a young man, he'd thought Italy was hot. He was a harder man now, stronger, and he sat comfortably in the dappled shade of an ironwood tree on the steps of his own house, shirtless and shoeless. Sweat rising from his browned skin kept him quite cool as he peeled the thin skin from a mango.

No one worked this time of day, past noon when the sun shone fiercest. Not even in Savannah, in the fields by the river where men whom the world had for a hefty fee 'forgotten' labored to earn their keep — Mr. Oglethorpe their gentle jailer had thought himself quite merciful and let them sleep these hot hours away. Even hotter here in the winterless southern sea, and the men and women who owned this village had been slaves in their own time of far less thoughtful masters, without the supposed virtue of shared white skin to buy them leniency; in freedom they rested when they needed to, and worked only at what seemed good to them. 

Many years ago it had been Thomas's dream to prevent this, to marshal them all for commerce and what he called enlightenment, and perhaps some day he would earn absolution for it. Until then he tried to learn from them and served their rebel queen. Now, just now, he rested as he had learned to do and smiled when he heard James's footsteps on the path. No one else here strode quite like that, in boots exactly like that, confident like a king-lion prowling through the heat.

Clad all in black, James smiled to see him, and Thomas's heart skipped a beat. He was very used to that sensation, caused by this man, and so didn't let it stop him. He raised the ripe, rich-smelling mango up, his knife poised at one end. "Want some?"

"Please," James said, and sank to his knees on the patchy grass before the steps, there in front of Thomas, sharing the ironwood's shade. His hands on Thomas's thighs and his handsome body bracketed between Thomas's legs made Thomas's heart revisit that idea of beating. 

With great concentration Thomas shaved off a sliver of the soft yellow fruit and then put the knife aside, not trusting his hand to be steady. He laid the flesh in James's open mouth, thumb sliding between his parted lips, and watched the sudden sweet shock of it spreading across his tongue, down his throat. The taste would glow, warm and sticky like the day; golden, like the flesh of the fruit. Thomas cut himself a slice so he could feel what James felt. 

The flavor lingered on his tongue as he cut another piece. "How is the admiral?" he asked.

"Neck deep in Madi's account books," James answered, "and happy as a pig. Says he sailed a desk for years without thinking he'd get this much use out of it. He seems frankly delighted at the idea of robbing England." 

He let Thomas feed him another slice of fruit, but he moved snake-quick this time and caught Thomas's thumb and forefinger between his teeth, incisors' sharp edges barely prickling the skin. Then his lips closed around Thomas's fingers and his tongue licked the juices from each fingertip before he slowly drew back and chewed the morsel he had taken. His eyes were dark green in the ironwood's shadow.

He had been so free since the old man had arrived. Since they'd _captured_ Admiral Hennessey, like a prize at sea. Exactly like a prize, in fact. They'd only wanted the sloop. Then they'd debated what to do with him, the two of them and Madi. Thomas had wanted James to leave the choice to Madi, who would undoubtedly decide to do the sensible thing and kill him, and whose decision it was regardless. She was queen here, and they were not, and no matter how gently she wielded that power, all decisions ultimately were hers. He envied her precisely none of it.

But James had walked away and told Thomas not to follow, and gone to see the old man, to hear whatever hateful things Hennessey had yet to say. And come back, not much later, with his arm around the old man's shoulders and a bewildered, hopeful smile. 

James didn't wait for Thomas to offer him another piece. He took each of Thomas's wrists, the hand that held the mango and the hand that held the knife, and pulled the fruit to his mouth so he could take a bite. Thomas watched the juice run down James's chin to wet the whiskers below his mouth. His beard spanned his jaw, neat and full; his hair grew long and thick again, past his shoulders. Red like his tongue, red like heartsblood, golden in the sun, going silver at his temples. Very much a lion. Thomas wanted to hear him purr. Thomas wanted to feel his _teeth_ again.

When he bit into the fruit himself, just where James's mouth had been, and when the sweet liquor ran down his tongue and spilled over his lips, dripped even to his chest, James rose up on his knees and licked the juices from Thomas's skin. Thomas inhaled the scents he carried with him, unmistakable below the heady fruit and the bright ironwood flowers: cold salt water and steel, warm leather and the heavy, spicy thread of tar. He had smelled much the same in London, as best Thomas could remember, but that city's constant perfume of garbage and shit had been less a pleasant backdrop than this hot day, in this rebel village that smelled of clean earth and green, growing things.

James let go his wrists, and Thomas put the mango aside, then draped his arms across his love's broad shoulders, loose and easy, not grasping, not desperate; enjoying his solidity. Like the humid air that surrounded them, Thomas's thoughts moved slowly and in circles — James's clever tongue — the tickle of whiskers against his bare face — the nipping at his lips, curious little bites — those sharp teeth, a lion's fangs, deadly and tender — how Thomas gave as good as he got, nipping back in turn — sipping little tastes of James's mouth — and oh! James's clever tongue — and so James had the ties of Thomas's breeches open and his prick half out before Thomas remembered where they were.

"James! We're not — anyone could see us," he cautioned, drawing back.

James followed him, leaning in. "Sure could," James agreed, and kissed him again as the idea shivered through Thomas's brain. It was a demanding, searching kiss, requiring that Thomas open, take James's tongue and breath into himself and share between them the sweet ghost of the mango. It was an idea that set his blood racing loud. Being found here, where they were safe — 

Thomas had never, not once since they'd grabbed freedom, hesitated to hold James's hand, to lay an arm over his shoulders, even to place a near-chaste kiss on his cheek. They were agreed on that: that they would not hide, or else how were they free? But to couple outside under a clear blue sky, the heat-hazed afternoon no curtain to obscure them, where _anyone_ from the village could take the well-trod path around their house and come up here, and see James straining against him, see James _having_ him — 

Oh, yes.

Whatever resistance he had made, he stopped. He cupped James's face in his hands, dipped into James's open collar, felt the strong pulse at his throat, so close to the skin. Such a beautiful throat, freckle-covered, his Adam's apple standing out just so, just under Thomas's thumbs. Thomas's prick grew full in James's hand, James's grip firm and sure, and Thomas could feel a sly, self-satisfied smile tugging at James's lips. James dipped his head, nuzzling at Thomas's throat, tasting him, flicking his tongue into the divot at the center of his collarbone as if some drops of juice had fallen there. It set Thomas's toes curling against the smooth-sanded wooden steps, the sensation more immediate, more demanding of his attention than the good, familiar feeling of a hand working at his prick. 

James sat back on his heels, quite pleased with himself, looking at all he'd wrought. Thomas thought his mouth must be as red-bitten as James's, his cheeks as flushed, his eyes as dark and wild. And Thomas had his legs spread wide, his prick fat and lolling over his undone laces. Moments later James made it worse; he reached for Thomas's waistband and urged him to lift his hips, pulling his breeches off entirely and flinging them somewhere behind. Then Thomas was sat there naked on the steps, wonderfully exposed, and James kneeling in front of him might have just come from a ship: black leather boots shining, gold wrapped 'round his fingers and glinting at his ear, a curved knife tucked through his sash. A killer, a pirate, a great cat observing its prey. God, anyone could see that James wanted to _devour_ him. _Anyone_ could see Thomas, hard and getting harder _because_ he was exposed and obscene. 

The urge to look around for hidden watchers was almost overwhelming. To smile at them, let them see what he was doing. How beautiful it was. 

James looked down between them, his face all bright. "You know I'd love you if you had the smallest cock I'd ever seen, but, lover, I'm glad you've got a big one." 

Laughing, Thomas spread his legs further and beckoned his lover close. James complied. So soft his lips, so gentle his sharp teeth against Thomas's mouth, in the vulnerable hollows of his throat. James's hands held him, just held him, while Thomas wrapped his fingers around James's arms and felt the corded muscle in them. Luxuriated. 

Imagined what James would do to anyone who tried to punish Thomas. 

Thomas was a hard man now when he hadn't been before, and he had lost the instinct for pity. He could see to his own protection. But the strength of James's arms was a reminder that he needn't do so. All he had to do was to protect James.

James would — 

Bend, and take Thomas's prick in his mouth, all of the head fitting comfortably on his tongue. Chuckle, his mouth full, as Thomas groaned his gratitude, and laugh harder, his shoulders shaking, when _that_ sensation made Thomas curse and grab the steps below him. Pull his mouth away with a soft, wet _pop_ and hold Thomas in his hand, steady, _not_ stroking him. Throw his other arm across Thomas's hips to hold him fast, so that he could take his own sweet time dragging his tongue across Thomas's cockhead, across _just_ the tender flesh around his slit, and Thomas shuddered at his delicious helplessness. There was nothing that could be done to speed James when he was like this. Pleading would just make him laugh again.

Such delicate torture. When James laid fast kisses down the length of his prick and then below, when he took one of Thomas's stones into his mouth and rolled his tongue all over it like a piece of sugar candy, it was as if all the tropical air became but an extension of his mouth, wet and inescapable.

And there sat Thomas, his body bending, pulled toward James, a physical _yes, now_ to anything James offered. Greedy, like a flower following the sun, drinking it all down.

"Aren't you going to finish?" James asked, and Thomas blinked. Not the faintest clue what he was talking about — until James nodded at the mango lying forgotten within reach. Half-eaten, half-peeled, a knife stuck through it, still it glistened enticingly.

James licked his lips, watching, as Thomas reached for the fruit, but shook his head when Thomas offered it to him. 

Its flesh felt cool in his palm. Its aroma rose like incense. Thomas breathed in deep and took another bite. While its soothing juices coursed down his throat, James nuzzled between his legs, unhurried, lips a ripe, red promise. All the wide world around them felt very small in this moment. 

Juice ran down Thomas's wrist. He tapped James on the chin with two wet fingers, making him look up; then he slipped them into James's mouth, just the tips. They were sticky and fragrant, and James sucked them clean. Thomas wanted James's mouth on him, on his nipples, on his throat again; he made the wonderful discovery that he needn't say a word. He had merely to take his fingers, sticky with juice, and paint their sweetness wherever he wished for James to kiss; that sufficed. James followed obediently, observant and precise, eager as a well-trained hound to do as he was bidden. 

When the mango had been stripped down to a few tendrils of meat clinging to the stone, James asked, "Fancy getting fucked?"

"Mmhm." 

"Here?" _He_ sounded eager at that. 

"Absolutely not. We've a bed inside." Thomas looked at him, comfortable like a man dreaming; his smile spread slow and sly. "And all the shutters are open, so still we might be seen."

James rolled back on his heels and smoothly to his feet. Probably his knees hurt after all that time spent kneeling, so he'd be taking extra care not to show it. Vanity, unneeded in a man so splendid. James helped Thomas to his feet.

"Go ahead," James told Thomas. He leered. "I like the view."

Thomas took him by the hand and led him to their bed as he had so many times before.

There'd been a young man in Georgia. A boy, really; he ought to have been picking up debutantes' dropped handkerchiefs and lying to his friends about his prowess, not toiling there in a prison for men who had outlived themselves. His name was Peter. Thomas had resolved not to hold it against him.

Peter was a gentleman's son, a fact that hadn't saved him when he'd fucked above his station. He'd never named the man; a duke, or the son of one, Thomas gathered from details he'd let slip, and from that short list of suspects Thomas had a name or two in mind. 

Most of those slips had come while he'd been lying against Thomas's chest. Never all at once. Thomas had fucked him roughly and then held him when he cried. He couldn't bear to be taken softly, because it reminded him of the man he wouldn't name. Through those tears over the course of months Thomas had learned more or less what happened.

Until young Peter's story, he'd never known brave his lieutenant had been, when he'd let Thomas take him by the hand and lead him to bed. All those years ago in London he'd eased the uniform off of those broad shoulders and marveled at their strength; he'd kissed his way down James's body until he was on his knees because he was overcome by the man's beauty. And all the while, he hadn't understood the quiet courage that had kept James standing there, that let him so gently urge Thomas onward while Thomas worshiped him, while Thomas took that gorgeous prick into his mouth and sucked it red and wet and cried from the pleasure of it, while James knew in his bones that an earl's son could destroy him out of hand if ever Thomas's interest waned. Thomas never could have, would have sooner thought to tear his own heart out with his bare hands than to turn on James, but James had been the valiant one with no name and no position except that which he had earned, who faced ruin and loved Thomas anyway, who let Thomas love him.

There were days when Thomas could not bear to look at himself. On those days he slashed his hand through too-still water; he turned away from the large mirror Madi kept. He wouldn't meet James's eyes for fear of what he'd see reflected there. He'd surrendered many years before James had found him; James had found a kept creature, docile, pleasing to his jailers. James had freed him from there. Freed both of them.

James was ever brave. 

This house the two of them now shared was small and comfortable, made of mud and thatching with unglazed windows all around. It was built upon a platform so that cooling breezes could move under and around it; it held a table and two chairs, a shelf of books, a chest of clothes, a basket of tools. Their bed was itself on a platform, sturdy enough for two big men who liked to fuck in it, high enough for two _aging_ men who wanted to spare their backs. 

It was a garden of color. Maroon women wove the most beautiful fabrics, no two of them alike. Even those patterns picked out in shades of black and brown were intricate and bold. They demanded that one stop and look. Thomas could no longer bear to be surrounded merely by the practical, the dull, the modest. He'd bartered for some of these fabrics, received others as gifts, still others he'd repaid with labor. One ancient grandmother with no teeth and bright eyes had demanded a dirty song dug up from his feckless youth. Her work was his favorite: red diamonds on a blue field, slashed everywhere with yellow.

When Thomas turned to face him, James put his hands on Thomas's stomach and shoved him playfully to the bed. Then he climbed into Thomas's lap faster than Thomas could yank him down and kissed him. Their combined weight sunk them deep into the tick. James tasted sweet and sharp, mouth doused with mango juice and the salt of Thomas's body: his sweat, the semen welling at the tip of his prick. 

Lazy rolling movements of James's hips caught Thomas's prick between his own stomach and the coarse linen of James's trousers. James's still-clothed prick was a hot, hard line that ground torturously against Thomas's with every swell. It was a feeling like being on a ship at sea, inexorable. Thomas moaned around James's tongue. Of course, that only encouraged him.

Blindly, Thomas fumbled open the sash that wrapped 'round James's waist, only to be stymied by his trouser buttons. He grimaced and James laughed, sitting back on his heels so he could see Thomas's face. Thomas made a frustrated noise; he felt _cold_ where James's heat had been, as little sense as that made. His prick wanted attention. James's weight held his hips pinned down. 

James caught his hands and brought them together before Thomas could touch himself. He turned them this way and that so that he could kiss them on the knuckles, on the fingertips, in the deep curve between each thumb and forefinger. His beard seemed to find a place to tickle in every curve and crevice. Hunting, the lion looked at Thomas through keen sea-colored eyes. It was hungry.

"My lord," and the emphasis was on _my_.

Thomas's heart pounded.

Peter the soft boy had killed himself, unable to bear a future where his lover never took him back. He'd done it wrong and had been some time dying. When the doctor went away and the minister shook his head and followed, Thomas had sat holding his hand and prayed with him. At the end, when he had called Thomas another man's name, Thomas had nodded and answered. _I love you. I'm sorry I sent you away. Come home, my darling._

When his jailers had told him, triumphant, that Miranda was dead, that James was dead — when he had sometimes believed _himself_ dead, dead and damned because all he had thought he knew about God had been vanity — when his feet and hands bled through weeping blisters, labor's stigmata — when his skin grew leathery and his body hardened, and he ceased to feel horror at sharing the working man's lot — accepting the allotment of pain that was the condition of most men, who would never sit on goosedown cushions and walk through cool marble halls in perfect silken hose — hadn't he been lucky to have that for as long as he had — hadn't it been a pleasure — 

Never, in all his despairing, had he doubted that James died loving him. Wanting him, even though Thomas had been James's ruin. James was constant. Thomas was not like dead, forsaken Peter.

But James was alive. James liked to fuck him when he was spent and pliant. _I like to watch it. The joy on your face. Just joy._

James said, "Let me," and reached between them.

Thomas splayed his hands out on the colored cloths that draped their bed, fingers digging into blue and yellow. He shifted his weight back onto his hands. Opened himself to James, again. Always. 

The mattress was in that sweet spot where the straw batting had been beaten into softness, all the prickly bits worn down, but not yet too hard-packed to sleep on. In a few weeks it would start to worsen, and soon after it would be time for them to empty the mattress out and start breaking in straw anew. On and on, three or four times a year, for the rest of their lives. 

Thomas closed his eyes and let his lover stroke his prick, flushed dark, wet with drops of come and James's spit. Agonizing pleasure made Thomas shudder as James jerked him past mere arousal, too fast for Thomas to control, not fast enough for Thomas to spend. James would take his time. James liked to tease. James _loved_ to play with Thomas's prick and squeeze Thomas's stones in his cupped hand. To brush his damp fingertips over Thomas's hole and make a pleased, soothing noise when Thomas asked for more. All in good time.

For a very long time, Thomas had not been the master of his own body. What to eat, when to sleep, when to shit: he hadn't been consulted. Once he had been used to being so generous with his belongings, with his body. No reason to hoard what he had when he could never run out. Before. He was snappish and short-tempered now, jealous of what he had, envious of others. He had killed men. He might someday kill a woman. If James could compass that atrocity within him, why shouldn't Thomas? When it happened, it would be Thomas's choice. Thomas knew now to die rather than be owned again.

Except by James. What parts of Thomas had survived those years all belonged to James, wholly and without regret. If James wished to tease him, reward or torment him, wanted his mouth, his ass, his throat held in James's hands — it was good. Thomas was in safe keeping. 

Now Thomas panted and writhed under James's hand. His fingers scrabbled at the bedcovers. Blood thudded through his body. Through his prick. Despite James's weight, his thighs trembled. It felt so fucking good to be vulnerable and used. To be bare with windows open all around, a straight shot down the path that lead to town. James kissed his lips and drank in his stuttered gasps. James's hand was firm, steady, and exquisitely cruel; it dangled Thomas over a precipice.

Then James kissed his forehead, lips like a balm, and with his other hand petted Thomas's short hair. "Come on, sweetheart," James murmured. "Get me good and wet."

The little death was sweet release. Thomas pressed his face into his lover's shoulder, his arms around James, that strong body anchoring and holding him. James's hands moved on him still, slow and gentle, petting, guiding him through this climax. Every stroke up and down his length brought a surge; James's hand moved easier, wetter, taking Thomas's come and slicking it down his prick.

James was so very good at making Thomas come.

When he could breathe again and James's hands were still, Thomas brushed his lips over the vein that ran up James's neck. Blood rushed through there, just beneath the surface; James's heart pounded against his chest. Thomas could taste his desire. The air seemed thick with it.

What power Thomas once had in life seemed pale and shallow compared to this: Thomas could give James what he desired. 

Leaning back on one arm he smiled at James and slipped his hand between them. James's cock was hot and full in his trousers, pressing hard against the linen. He watched James gasp and gulp down a mouthful of air when he cupped it and pressed in; lazily, he ran his thumb along the length of it and hummed in satisfaction when James shivered.

"Is this all for me?" he joked, batting his eyes ridiculously. He won a snort from James.

Oh, but it was only half a joke. 

Orgasm was not the end of pleasure for Thomas; it never had been. He liked every part of sex. Thick arms like tree limbs around him, a heavy body twined with his. Rough rasp of a man's whiskers against his mouth — oh, when James had come home from sea and surprised him with that beard, Thomas had ridden his face that night until his thighs were scraped tender by it. They'd had no idea at all about the terrors the next day would bring. They'd been free. A decade of misery hadn't stripped the pleasure from that memory: James's rope-roughened hands spreading his ass apart, tongue writhing across his hole, whiskers scraping every vulnerable part of him every time he moved, and under James's onslaught he could _not_ hold still. His own hands buried in James's hair, thick and shining, loose across the pillows; the ribbon that had held it tied around Thomas's wrist, because he wanted to be marked by James in every way that James would give him. Reaching back, feeling James's cock stiff and leaking, ready to take Thomas, James groaning like a dying man at Thomas's touch but pulling Thomas closer, tongue taking him more fiercely. James had looked up at him, barked for him to put his hands on the headboard, keep them there, and Thomas had nearly _died_ obeying him.

That had been when they were young. Older now, both of them. Desire not a hot rush but a comfortable, banked fire, built to burn steady and slow. And still his heart pounded. Still his soul blazed bright for James. He believed it always would. 

They would have to put up a sign somewhere down the path: _Beware! Old men fucking_. Keep the young people from being blinded by their wrinkles.

When James stood up, Thomas made himself comfortable on the bed. He stuffed a pillow under his head, and after a moment's thought, another beneath his hips. Old, indeed. And that was all the responsibility that Thomas need take. He could relax, and watch, fingers stroking idly over his own stomach while James stripped off his shirt, undid those damned buttons, slicked his cock with oil. 

Thomas bore down and opened to him, easy. They were a lock and key.

He held his hand over James's heart. "God left a hole in me. Shaped just so. So that I would know you when I found you." 

James, bent over him, took a moment with his eyes squeezed shut. Thomas felt so deliciously full. Then James cracked one eye open and asked, "Are you talking about your actual arse or ..."

Thomas shoved him, but only lightly. He didn't want James to pull away. "Well," he conceded, "not _just_ that." 

Laughter was easy. So bright and easy when James shared it with him. 

And then James, still laughing, grabbed his ankles and pressed his legs further apart, and fucked him like a stallion let at a mare. Thomas gasped and grabbed the pillow behind his head, shocked anew at how _fucking_ good James's prick was. Even though he was spent and his unlovely, flaccid member flopped ridiculously with every thrust, even though his own come still clung wetly to him and he was _decades_ past a time he could have stood straight again so soon — being fucked and filled by James was _always_ good. 

That slick, warm slide of flesh through him and the obscene, rhythmic sound of their bodies colliding lulled him. He was wrapped in velvet: James's hands holding him open, James's solid presence above him, James's breath, all of it was one with the fecund air here in the navel of the world. All the world was gold and green, and he could see it all through their big windows where the shutters never closed. Thomas could not bear to have them closed. To sit in a small, dark room — 

No. He was here, he was with James, and James was — oh, fucking him so _very_ well, splitting him open and filling all those hollowed parts inside. It shivered through his belly, the feeling of being taken, the song his nerves sang. He could drink in the sight of James.

James was tall, from this perspective. James was tall in general; it was just that Thomas was ridiculous in that regard. His broad shoulders seemed to span the room, sun-browned, freckled — not knotted as they so often were with stress and worry. His beautiful face was radiant. Eyes closed, his mouth open, his hands white-knuckled where they gripped Thomas's legs. Thomas barely felt the pain. How could a little pain matter, when that ecstasy was on his beloved's face, and it was all because of Thomas?

Thomas had scars on his back. On his wrists and ankles. James's scars were on his front; he had fought against them. He had made the ones who scarred him pay in blood. He was fierce and tender. His hands were hard and their touch so soft, so reverent. He was everything Thomas wanted in this life. God had made him for Thomas, and for that Thomas was always thankful. 

Thomas reached up to him and just his fingertips could touch James's face. Blind, James turned into them, and his lips were soft and full, chapped and beautiful under Thomas's caress.

James was silent when he came. It was the erratic stutter of James's hips that warned him, and the spread of warmth within Thomas's ass that came with James's release. Thomas made a soft noise and caught James by the wrists, eased him down, asked for his weight and received it joyfully, James's hips still jerking, fucking Thomas with his still-hard prick until it waned. Contented, Thomas stroked his fingers through his lion's mane. James lay on him, all his weight upon him, and breathed deeply against Thomas's shoulder.

Later, James shifted his weight and slid beside Thomas on the bed. Their legs were tangled. James's boots were on his feet still and his trousers around his ankles. They were a mess. Sweating, sticky. Thomas's feet were still dirty from walking around unshod. Thomas grinned lopsidedly at James and rubbed their noses together. His heart was so very full.

The first thing that came to mind to say: "Did I ever tell you about the unfortunate boy I went to school with, whose mother had _insisted_ he be named Heliogabalus? She knew it meant sunlight and a love of flowers; his father, panicked with the birth of his second son, hadn't been strong enough to tell her no."

"Poor rich boy," James murmured, and Thomas nodded seriously. His held James's hand, fingers intertwined.

"Indeed. We called him Gabby until we got to the part of history he'd been dreading, and learned about the emperor. After that we only called him Gabby when we wanted to be kind — which wasn't often, we were terrible little shits, the lot of us. But he simply wouldn't answer, and looked at us all quite calm and told us he was Gabby. By the time we all left school he insisted it stood for 'Gabriel,' and he said it with such conviction that despite knowing better we believed him.

"Come to think of it, he took a post at the Admiralty. Perhaps you knew him."

"No, I don't think … wait, not Gabriel Crane? Lord Gabriel?" Thomas nodded, grinning at the look of disbelief that spread over James's face. "That uptight prig — and I'm the one calling him that, so you know it was bad … 'Gabby.' Heliogabalus." He shook his head, his mouth curling til it mirrored Thomas's smile. " _Sunshine_. That would have made some staff meetings more bearable if I'd known."

It was a silly thing to remember, and it lead to other, sillier thoughts. He had been considering — it was foolish, and would hardly make a difference. But Thomas, well-fucked, love-drunk, looked at James in the afternoon's golden light, and thought, _Why not now?_

He said, "I've been thinking about names lately. My lady Madi is 'Miss Scott' when she cares to be, though that was a name that marked her father as a slave; she uses it because she remembers him with love and pride.

"I don't like the name Hamilton. It hasn't done a great deal to give me pride. And love …" he shook his head. "Even Miranda stopped using it when the two of you left England, though it belonged to her as much as everything else the Earl tried to take."

Father was dead. She should have been free of him. She should be a countess now, a great lady holding a court of her own, gifts from all the handsomest men in London laid at her feet. Keeping a beautiful house that she let her radical, shiftless husband inhabit because she was gracious. He had loved her. All his love had bought her had been an unmarked grave.

"I don't like my name much at all. I'd much rather have yours." He looked up at James from their clasped hands, suddenly bashful, because every way he'd thought to ask this had seemed inadequate, and here he was, babbling it out.

It was such a foolish thing to ask. Not as if they would change — they had become quite comfortable living in sin and would surely go on that way. There was no church in the world that would acknowledge this or call it holy. But no man knew the things of God, and what He had joined together, let no man dare to sunder.

Thomas would murder the next bastard who tried.

James looked shocked, then wondering. Thomas couldn't find it in him anymore to be afraid. James reached out with his other hand to touch Thomas's face, as if seeing something new there.

Softly, James said, "Mr. McGraw?" and Thomas nodded, his eyes suddenly wet.

James laughed and kissed him, then pressed their foreheads together, comfortable. "Madi's going to want us to have a party," he warned. He didn't sound upset about it.

"I'm counting on it," Thomas confided.

He kissed James, and then they stayed there, dozing through the heat. At some point Thomas got up and helped James out of his boots, then washed himself down with water from the pitcher. Not much of a bath; he still smelled of James. He laid back down in their wide, richly-covered bed until the breeze turned cooler and the light took on a tinge of orange.

Thomas sat up, stretching. James lay quite comfortable beside him, hands folded beneath his head. "The sun's getting on. I promised Nnamdi I'd finish putting the roof on that farrowing shed."

James's lips twitched. His eyes stayed closed. "That's interesting. I promised absolutely nothing."

It felt _good_ to know he'd leave James here content. Perhaps James would still be in bed when Thomas came back. He brushed an errant strand of hair from James's face and stood up, walking outside to retrieve his breeches.

A few minutes later, he walked back inside, hand over his stomach to hold in his laughter. "James," he said, poking James in the side. "I'm afraid you're going to have to get dressed."

Lizard-like, James's eyes cracked open, slits just wide enough to see through. "The hell I am."

Thomas let his hand fall then and let the laughter out, silly snorting giggles, still tipsy with heat and sex. "No, you really have to, my dearest — you're the one who threw my breeches into that tree."

Later, after some grumbling, Thomas stood naked in his doorway on that golden afternoon and watched the fearsome Captain Flint battle a flowering ironwood tree to save his true love's breeches. He wished that he could have it painted.

**Author's Note:**

> Lions don't purr. Thomas, you ignorant slut.


End file.
